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NARRATOR: In October 1986, nine-year-old friends, Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway,
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disappeared while playing near their homes in Brighton, England. GRAHAM BARTLETT: They were just seen being
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little girls around the estate. Nothing extraordinary at all, until that point when they disappeared off the face of the Earth.
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NARRATOR: The following day, the bodies of the two young girls were discovered. The police had a prime suspect, 20-year-old Russell Bishop.
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But at his trial a year later, the killer walked away scot free. GEOFFREY WANSELL: Anyone with half a brain,
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would have been careful never to do it again. And yet, he does it again. NARRATOR: After attempting to kill a third young girl
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in 1990, Bishop would eventually face justice in 2018, 32 years after the murder of Nicola and Karen,
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the Babes in the Wood. MALCOLM BACON: Evil, insignificant, arrogant. He's a creature.
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He's horrible, absolutely horrible. NARRATOR: Russell Bishop had finally been unmasked as one of the world's most evil killers.
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[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: In December 2018, Russell Bishop was serving time in Frankland maximum security
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prison for the abduction, sexual assault, and attempted murder of a seven-year-old girl in 1990.
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Investigators were certain the 52-year-old was also responsible for the 1986 murders of nine-year-old friends,
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Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway. But in 1987, Bishop had been found not guilty of their murders.
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GRAHAM BARTLETT: There was a huge shock within the police, when Bishop was acquitted
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of killing Nicola and Karen. The investigation had been carried out so professionally
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and so assiduously. So when the jury returned with not guilty verdicts, everyone was just stunned.
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It just really rocked the whole police to the core. We just thought, what could possibly have gone wrong?
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We knew that it was Bishop. Everybody knew that it was Bishop, yet he'd walked free.
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NARRATOR: Since then, Graham Bartlett has studied Russell Bishop's career of crime.
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GRAHAM BARTLETT: When I was a very young detective at Brighton, I became involved in the second investigation
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into Russell Bishop. As a result of that, I became very aware of the case that had gone on before,
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and the injustice that had been served through the acquittals. So I became fascinated with the case.
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And as my career took off, I became constantly involved in terms of just being aware--
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and also when I was the Divisional Commander of Brighton and Hove-- this cloud over the whole policing
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of the city that we hadn't delivered justice for those two girls. NARRATOR: This killer's story begins in Brighton,
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on the South Coast of England. Russell Bishop was born in February in 1966. One of five brothers, Bishop had a troublesome time growing up.
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DR. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Bishop had difficulties at school in terms of his learning, he was dyslexic.
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So he was sent to a series of different special schools, and he ran away a lot. So this says to me, that from quite a young age,
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this is somebody who thinks that the rules don't apply to them. They simply don't want to follow them.
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NARRATOR: As a teenager, Bishop struggled to stay on the straight and narrow. GEOFFREY WANSELL: The first brushes he has with the law
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are for mundane offenses. A driving offense in 1983, when he was 17. A burglary offense in 1984, when he was 18.
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And then in 1985, he's convicted of more burglaries, and is given 150 hours of community service.
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He's bumping along at the bottom of the law in a very minor way. GRAHAM BARTLETT: He would smoke drugs.
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He would carry out theft burglaries, low level burglaries, steal from cars. Just really the run of the mill irritant on the estate.
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NARRATOR: To try and fit in with his friends, Bishop would embellish his criminal accomplishments.
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He has a bit of a penchant for bigging himself up. I mean, he likes to say, Oh, I'm a master criminal.
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Absolute nonsense. I mean, he might have tried to steal the odd car, but on a scale of 1 to 10, he's a zero.
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He's no master criminal at all. DR. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Bishop was a compulsive liar.
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He would lie about sexual conquests, how many women he'd slept with, the kind of criminal activity
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that he'd been involved in. So he's somebody who's very concerned with what other people think of him, and essentially
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giving a performance. So he will embellish, he will exaggerate, he will report what he wants to have happened,
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rather than what's actually happened. NARRATOR: By 1986, 20-year-old Bishop was living in Moulsecoomb, a suburb of Brighton.
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GRAHAM BARTLETT: At the time, he was living with his common law wife, his girlfriend,
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had a child by her. But also was seeing a 16-year-old girl, ended up having a sexual relationship with her.
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In some ways, he did show that he preferred younger girls, but nothing at all has come out then or now, that would suggest
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that he was a pedophile. NARRATOR: On the afternoon of the 9th of October 1986, nine-year-olds, Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway,
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had come home from school and were playing on the green outside their homes in Moulsecoomb.
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GEOFFREY WANSELL: Everybody can pretty much see them through the window. It's late afternoon and there are
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a group of girls, not just two. After an hour, maybe 45 minutes, Nicola and Karen
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split off from the rest of the group and go in search of something else to do. At about 6:15, the girls are seen
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outside the fish and chip shop with a bag of chips each and walking. Nothing all that unusual in that except that
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by then, both Nicola's and Karen's mother are becoming rather concerned. GRAHAM BARTLETT: When Karen didn't come home for tea,
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which is something that she would always do when her mum asked her, both parents started to get worried,
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started to have a look round, phone around friends, and try and find where they are.
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And they were drawing a blank. In this sort of estate, in any sort of estate, certainly in my childhood too, it wasn't unusual
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for kids to go missing for a couple of hours or so, the evenings were still light.
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But something about them going missing and not being seen, nobody knew where they were,
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that really piqued people's worries about what had happened to these two little girls.
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NARRATOR: Throughout the evening there have been various sightings of the girls around the estate
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and in nearby Wild Park. GEOFFREY WANSELL: The last time the two girls are seen,
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is heading towards Wild Park with their bags of chips. And in the same vicinity, at around the same time,
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there's also a sighting there of Russell Bishop. NARRATOR: Bishop knew both girls through his friends
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and neighbors in Moulsecoomb. GRAHAM BARTLETT: It was a very close knit community.
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Bishop used to play for Barrie Fellows football team, he was a goalkeeper in Barrie Fellows football team.
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So he knew the Fellows through that way. Also, his girlfriend at the time knew the Hadaway's.
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So he got to know them through that means, really. But Moulsecoomb is one of these places where people
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literally know everybody. NARRATOR: By 8:30 PM, night had fallen, and the girls still hadn't returned home.
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Their worried parents decided to call the police. GRAHAM BARTLETT: When the officers drove into Newick Road
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to go and see the parents, immediately they sensed something was different. They both policed Moulsecoomb for a while,
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they'd been to these kind of calls before. But the number of people out on the street, the little huddles
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of concerned faces trying to work out what was going on, immediately they picked up on that.
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NARRATOR: A police search began for the two nine-year-old friends. GRAHAM BARTLETT: It's difficult when you're either commanding
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or taking part in a search such as this, because your overriding emotion must be hope.
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You must hope that you're going to find these girls alive. Find Nicola and Karen, bring them back to their mum and dad.
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But in fact, the longer it went on, the less likely that was becoming. NARRATOR: The girl's parents, the police,
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and the whole community were desperate to find Nicola and Karen alive. It was cold and dark, but the search continued until 2:00 AM.
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When it resumed later that morning, Detective Constable John Moreton was one of the huge number of police that
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had been drafted in to help. JOHN MORETON: The briefing started at 9 o'clock. And at that stage, we had all the available uniformed
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personnel at Brighton engaged. And the search had been ramped up considerably in an effort to find the girls.
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NARRATOR: Police Constable Paul Smith had also reported for duty. He was tasked with searching homes
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in the area near Wild Park. PAUL SMITH: We were doing every single house parallel to the park and beyond, which is a massive estate.
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And I think there was sort of 30, 40 guys involved. You knock on the door, you say, look,
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we've got two little girls gone missing, can I search your house? And every single person, every one of them
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said, please come in. Hope was always there. But actually, this dread that something
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awful had happened to them, was starting to grow in people's minds. NARRATOR: Members of the public also joined in the search
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for Nicola and Karen. One of the Moulsecoomb residents was 20-year-old Russell Bishop.
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GRAHAM BARTLETT: He was searching around with everybody else. He got in a car at one point and went to the back of the park.
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But was constantly putting himself in or about the center of the search, just wanted to be kept coming back to Wild Park.
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Kept wanting to talk to officers. DR. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Bishop literally can't help himself.
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And as with many narcissists, he wants to be right in the middle of everything. He can't step back from something, he can't be quiet.
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And any kind of attention, whether that's positive or whether that's negative, is something that he will value.
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So he places himself right in the middle of this drama that he's created. NARRATOR: When Paul Smith continued with his search
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for the nine-year-old girls in Wild Park, Russell Bishop was already on the scene with his dog.
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PAUL SMITH: We were talking about searching, looking for the girls, and he was quite negative about that.
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He said, I've been searching all day, my dog knows them, he's a good tracker. And I've decided to give up, I've been doing it all day.
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And I said, well, we've got to keep looking, got to find them. If we find them, rush them to hospital
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and have them checked over, and then they'll be back with their mums and dads, sort of thing.
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And he said, oh, well, I'm not doing that. He said, because if I found them and they're dead,
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I get arrested, won't I? For killing them. With my background, and the fact I've
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been in trouble with the police, I'd get nicked. And I said, no, you won't. You've just got to give a statement.
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NARRATOR: At around 4:00 PM, Police Officer, Paul, and local resident, Bishop, were still
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searching for the girls, who'd now been missing for almost 24 hours. PAUL SMITH: We were walking towards Wild Park by this time,
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into Wild Park. And there was a shout from a boy. And he said, we found them, we found them.
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We went rushing off towards them. And I had wet weather trousers on, because it had been raining.
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And I had a long raincoat, I had boots. So I was a bit slower than he was. And I said to Bishop, look, you run on ahead,
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and if they're there, you keep them away from the girls, and you keep away from the girls.
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NARRATOR: Paul Smith arrived just after Bishop. The nightmare that everyone was dreading had become a reality.
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PAUL SMITH: I kept him away. He was about 12, 13 feet away from where the girls were.
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And I could see that they looked dead. I went across to them and I took their pulse, and--
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Sorry, it still gets me. I took their pulse, and they were stone cold dead. Like pieces of marble.
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NARRATOR: The two teens who'd found the girls told Detective Constable John Moreton, that no one apart from Paul Smith
00:13:38
had gone anywhere near the bodies. But Russell Bishop had a totally different story.
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JOHN MORETON: He said to me that he'd been searching with the other two along this path
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and they come to a fallen tree, which they had to cross. And that he had crossed the tree, gone to the girls,
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and seen that they were both dead. And to verify that, he said he took a pulse from both girls
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at the neck. Frankly, I was so staggered by what he said that I sat down immediately, and wrote down
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what he told me in my notebook. PAUL SMITH: It was nothing to him. You know like you swat a fly, and then you get rid of it.
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It was like that. He was just not bothered. There was no emotion. I would have expected him, because he knew
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them, to be like, oh my God. Even if you're in shock. But, no, nothing. Nothing there at all.
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It could have been a dead dog. DR. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: The police were suspicious of Bishop from the beginning,
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because he was overly enthusiastic. And some of the information that he was sharing, really
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didn't stack up. So he claimed to have checked the girls pulses. He claimed to have seen blood coming from the mouths of one
00:14:50
of the girls, and he couldn't have been close enough to say that. So the police were quite concerned at this behavior.
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There were a lot of red flags here. So he was the prime suspect, really. NARRATOR: Nicola Fellows and Karen
00:15:06
Hadaway had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. The news of the discovery quickly
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spread amongst the residents of Moulsecoomb. The entire community was in shock. GRAHAM BARTLETT: Any murder is big.
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Any murder is a tragedy. But the loss of two little girls, in such brutal circumstances, is probably
00:15:30
the biggest thing that can happen in terms of policing. GEOFFREY WANSELL: It's a dreadful scene,
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and it's a dreadful crime. It has a monstrous effect on the community in Brighton.
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Originally, the killings were known as the Wild Park murders, but they later became known as the Babes in the Wood killings,
00:15:50
because the girls were so innocent and young. JOHN MORETON: I'd gone to school in Moulsecoomb
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for all my childhood, so it was a personal blow to me that somebody would take two young girls from that estate,
00:16:06
and decide he was going to murder them. To me, you don't do that. Not on my beat.
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NARRATOR: The search for two missing girls had now become a double murder case. Evidence from the surrounding area was scrutinized.
00:16:21
At the briefing the next morning, our attention was drawn to a blue sweatshirt, which had a logo across the front, Pinto,
00:16:30
in white lettering. It had been handed in a police box by a railway engineer who was at Moulsecoomb station,
00:16:38
and found it hanging over the wire that separates the station from the footpath.
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NARRATOR: In 1986, DNA was still in its infancy, but that didn't mean there weren't any clues
00:16:50
to be found on the sweatshirt. GRAHAM BARTLETT: As time went on, the various forensic items were recovered from it.
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Fibers from the girls jumpers. Ivy spores that were peculiar to the area where the girls were killed, and not where the sweatshirt was found.
00:17:05
So it became very clear that whoever had murdered Nicola and Karen, had been wearing this sweatshirt
00:17:13
at the time they did that. Because otherwise, those fibers would not have retained on there.
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So it was really, really significant, this sweatshirt. NARRATOR: Russell Bishop had been acting suspiciously,
00:17:26
and he had been spotted in the area at around the same time as the girls were last seen alive.
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Investigators were convinced that the Pinto sweatshirt belonged to Bishop. The evidence appeared to be pointing in one direction.
00:17:41
In December 1986, Bishop was charged with the murders of Nicola and Karen. Almost a year later, in November 1987,
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his trial began at Lewes Crown Court. They never quite got to the point where they could say, through science,
00:17:58
that that sweatshirt was worn by Bishop on that night. They knew that it had been worn by the killer,
00:18:04
but they couldn't put it on Bishop's back at that point. NARRATOR: The prosecution put forward
00:18:09
the case that Bishop had murdered Nicola and Karen at around 6:30 PM. But one witness testified she'd waved hello
00:18:16
to the two girls at a quarter to seven, 15 minutes after the killings had supposedly taken place.
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DR. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: The judge asked the jury to go away and consider three propositions.
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And if one or more of them they didn't agree with, then they had to acquit. So the first one was that the girls were dead by 6:30.
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The second was that Bishop had worn the Pinto sweatshirt. And the third was that the Pinto sweatshirt
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had been worn by the murderer. Absolutely stunned. The most stunning thing of all was
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that the jury came back within two hours with a not guilty verdict. NARRATOR: The case put forward, was just not strong enough
00:18:58
to convince the jury of Bishop's guilt. It was a gut wrenching blow to the families of the two girls,
00:19:04
the investigators, and the community as a whole. GRAHAM BARTLETT: Bishop knew, when
00:19:09
he heard those words, not guilty, that he got away scot free. In his mind, and in everybody else's mind,
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there was no possibility of him being prosecuted again for that. DR. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: The way that the law stood
00:19:21
at this time, we had a principle called Double Jeopardy, which meant that somebody couldn't be tried for the same crime twice.
00:19:27
Once they'd been acquitted, that was it. The Prosecution couldn't just keep trying .
00:19:32
So Bishop is acquitted, and he feels absolutely invincible at this point in time.
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GEOFFREY WANSELL: Bishop leaves Lewes Crown Court with his arms in the air, shouting, I'm innocent.
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And rushes across the road to celebrate in the pub opposite. Now, some brass neck, wouldn't you think?
00:19:50
Some ego there. After all, he knows perfectly well that he's killed those two innocent young girls.
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NARRATOR: In the minds of the people who worked on the case, Russell Bishop had just got away with murder.
00:20:05
PAUL SMITH: Ordinary blokes like me, the PCs and that, was stunned, because after we'd heard about the case
00:20:11
and we knew what had gone on, we were sure that he was a killer. It was absolutely devastating for everybody.
00:20:17
That they had a child killer, a double child killer, in their hands, and he got away.
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NARRATOR: Investigators were certain Bishop was the perpetrator, but they couldn't
00:20:30
prove it in a court of law. So he walked away a free man. By 1989, Bishop himself, was seeking justice.
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Thing is, we still got to get this case reopened. And that's all what's been on my mind,
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is to get this case reopened. DR. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: After he's acquitted, Bishop doesn't just go away and live a quiet life.
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As a narcissist, he feels entitled to attention. And he quite likes the infamy that comes with being
00:20:57
involved in this case. So in 1989, he goes on a march with the family and the local community, to a local police station
00:21:06
to basically raise awareness about this case, which is apparently still unsolved.
00:21:12
REPORTER: Some people might be surprised that you're now linking up with the parents of the two murdered schoolgirls,
00:21:19
having been accused yourself of that murder. People are very surprised. People keep on asking me, why do I keep on, and on, and on.
00:21:28
The fact is, I want to see this case reopened. My name isn't cleared until someone
00:21:32
else is pulled to justice. The real person. DR. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He really enjoys
00:21:36
being at the center of that, because it enables him to claim the victim status for himself.
00:21:41
He's saying, everybody look at me, I am the victim of a miscarriage of justice, Feel sorry for me.
00:21:49
NARRATOR: By February 1990, Sussex Police were still trying to move on from what they believed
00:21:54
to be a grave miscarriage of justice, when a similar attack took place in the county.
00:22:00
GRAHAM BARTLETT: I remember in my first month as a Detective at Brighton CID. I was a very junior DC, bottom of the pile.
00:22:07
Working one Sunday evening, it happened to be the third anniversary of the girl's funerals,
00:22:13
and then suddenly everything changed. The Sergeant came in and told us that a little girl had gone
00:22:22
missing from Whitehawk, which is a similar state to Moulsecoomb, in a different part of Brighton.
00:22:27
And shortly after she'd been reported missing, a little girl had been found naked, scratched,
00:22:34
crying on Devil's Dyke, which is a big, windswept part of what's now the South Downs National Park.
00:22:42
NARRATOR: Detective Inspector Malcolm Bacon, was in charge of the investigation.
00:22:47
She comes to. She's in the middle of nowhere. So she stumbles out, and she's been seen by a couple
00:22:55
who are on the main road there. So she goes to them. And the first thing she said was, you're not
00:23:00
kidnappers are you? Bless her heart. But of course, they weren't. Wrapped up in a pullover and a coat,
00:23:08
and took her to The Dyke Golf Club. NARRATOR: The seven-year-old girl that survived a terrifying ordeal,
00:23:15
which she bravely shared with Malcolm and his team. After rollerskating to the local shop to buy some sweets,
00:23:22
her young life would change forever. MALCOLM BACON: She is on her way back, when she says she saw this red car.
00:23:30
And she was scooting past it, suddenly she was grabbed. Literally grabbed, snatched off the street,
00:23:37
and dumped into the boot of this red car, this red Cortina. MALCOLM BACON: She was scared.
00:23:43
Absolutely scared witless. And she realized she saw a can of WD-40. She described it as the stuff that her dad
00:23:51
uses to get the car started. And she also found in there, like a hammer type thing,
00:23:55
and so she started bashing on the lid of the boat with this hammer. Suddenly, the driver shouted down and told her to shut up,
00:24:04
stop doing that or I'll kill you. NARRATOR: The girl kept quiet, hoping that she'd be set free.
00:24:10
But her ordeal continued. MALCOLM BACON: She was bundled straight into the back seat of the car.
00:24:17
And from there, she realized, and she saw the person who was responsible. And she was strangled.
00:24:23
She was strangled, certainly to the point of view that she passed out. And I am sure--
00:24:29
I am sure that Bishop was convinced that he killed her. NARRATOR: Three years after the murders of Nicola Fellows
00:24:40
and Karen Hadaway, Russell Bishop was hoping to claim a third victim. MALCOLM BACON: At that point unconscious,
00:24:47
hardly any life signs at all, she was sexually assaulted. Bishop then just takes what he considers
00:24:53
to be the dead, naked body of a seven-year-old child that he is just assaulted and abused, and just discards.
00:25:04
There's no other word for it. He discards her. He just throws her in the middle of these gorse
00:25:09
bushes on a freezing cold Sunday night in February. NARRATOR: Bishop sped off in his car.
00:25:21
But the monster had made a mistake. The girl was not dead. DR. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I think he did seriously believe
00:25:28
that she was dead, because strangulation was a method that he'd used before on Karen and Nicola,
00:25:33
and it had been successful in relation to that case. So he assumes that it's worked again,
00:25:39
and that he's gotten away with it again, because there are no witnesses. We don't normally use forensic pathologists
00:25:46
to do examinations of children, but on this particular case, it was. Because he noticed not only the pinching around the throat,
00:25:54
but also petechial hemorrhages, which is indicative of a suffocating injury. That's the sort of thing that you
00:26:00
look at when a person has been strangled and they're killed. But that's how close she was.
00:26:05
Seconds, I would suggest. Seconds away from death. NARRATOR: The seven-year-old girl's incredible testimony
00:26:12
immediately helped Malcolm and his team come up with a prime suspect. MALCOLM BACON: So I gave a briefing to the troops,
00:26:18
and I mentioned about the red car, this, that, and the other. And the uniform chief inspector said,
00:26:23
are you aware that Russell Bishop was seen in a red car this week? NARRATOR: Less than two and a half years
00:26:31
after his acquittal for murder, the police were paying 23-year-old Russell Bishop another visit.
00:26:38
GRAHAM BARTLETT: They drove up to his house, and saw him scrubbing as if his life depended on it.
00:26:45
MALCOLM BACON: Washing his red Cortina on a Sunday night in February, that didn't sit right.
00:26:51
GRAHAM BARTLETT: So Bishop was arrested, and taken to the police station. NARRATOR: Bishop was back in custody.
00:26:59
It was a moment of bittersweet redemption for Sussex Police. MALCOLM BACON: People were volunteering to come in.
00:27:06
Soon as somebody heard it was Russel Bishop that had been nicked as well, you've got to be honest, that was like a magnet
00:27:10
as well. That was like a magnet. And I went down with the Sergeant from the scenes of crime officer to look at this car.
00:27:18
And when we opened up the boot lid, we saw the WD-40, we saw the hammer, we saw the chip marks to the boot.
00:27:25
And we thought, we're going in the right direction. NARRATOR: Evidence collected at the scene near Devil's Dyke,
00:27:35
didn't help Bishop's cause. MALCOLM BACON: We find tire marks at the area where we believe the assault took place.
00:27:44
The tire marks were later found to be exactly identical to the ones that were on Bishop's car.
00:27:50
NARRATOR: Soon, news reached the station of even more evidence that pointed towards Bishop's involvement.
00:27:56
GRAHAM BARTLETT: There was a taxi driver that had found a bundle of clothing on a road that was fairly busy, but was
00:28:02
the natural route away from the Dyke to where Bishop lived. This bundle of clothing would ultimately
00:28:10
be a parcel of evidence that had both the girls and Bishop's DNA in it together.
00:28:16
MALCOLM BACON: Chippings from the boot lid, they were on there. There was clothing fibers, which later matched up to the ones
00:28:22
that the little girl was wearing. There was blood, and there was semen on those trousers.
00:28:28
Immediately linking the little girl, to those trousers, to Bishop, and then the car as well.
00:28:36
NARRATOR: In a bid to make sure Bishop didn't escape justice, the brave seven-year-old girl was willing to face
00:28:43
her attacker once more. GRAHAM BARTLETT: Almost at the time a decision had to be made whether Bishop was going
00:28:48
to be freed or not, his solicitor asked for an identification parade. This was a bit of a last desperate throw of the dice,
00:28:55
in my view. It was a chance for Bishop's solicitor to see how well this little girl would stand up to the account
00:29:03
that she'd given. They set it up in a room with a one way mirror, so she could stand back and she can observe.
00:29:12
He sat down, he was given his number. MAN: I'm going to ask you in a moment, to look through the window at the line
00:29:22
of men who are sitting there. I shall then ask you, whether the person who you saw on that day is here.
00:29:32
GRAHAM BARTLETT: The girl looked up and down the line, stopped at Bishop, looked at Bishop.
00:29:37
He couldn't see her. GIRL: He's number 9. MAN: You think it's number 9? Thank you.
00:29:45
MALCOLM BACON: So it was really quite a tear jerking moment, in a sense. It was so emotional, that little bit.
00:29:51
I mean, it was just wonderful. For her, and for us. Definitely for us. NARRATOR: Bishop was charged with kidnap, indecent assault,
00:30:01
and attempted murder. At his trial in November 1990, he took to the stand in a bid to discredit
00:30:09
the police investigation . GEOFFREY WANSELL: The ever slippery Bishop attempts to convince the world that he's
00:30:14
been fitted up for the crime because of his fame. Oh, I'm the man that got away with the Babes
00:30:20
in the Wood killings. I was acquitted, but now they're trying to make up for lost time.
00:30:26
MALCOLM BACON: He got in the box and he started to give evidence, and his arrogance just
00:30:32
shone through. He didn't have to do anything, just let him talk. Just let him talk.
00:30:36
And he just showed this psychopathic behavior throughout. He couldn't stop himself from being
00:30:45
the victim to this arrogance that he showed throughout. NARRATOR: With incredible bravery,
00:30:52
the young girl, who had since turned eight, agreed to take to the stand in order to help get a conviction.
00:31:00
It must have been the most extraordinary moment. You've got this man full of all kinds of slippery stories,
00:31:07
and you've got this little girl sitting on a high stool with pillows saying, I know who attacked me.
00:31:15
He did. It was a moment of the highest drama. DR. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I think this kind of courage
00:31:22
and resilience is something that Bishop will never have, because he's such a coward.
00:31:27
Very often in these cases, the victims embody everything that the perpetrators aren't.
00:31:32
And that is very much the case here. NARRATOR: There is no escaping justice this time.
00:31:40
On the 13th of December 1990, Russell Bishop was sentenced to life in prison. GRAHAM BARTLETT: Sometimes when murderers are convicted
00:31:50
and good sentences are passed down, the police have a bit of a celebration. They might go out for a drink, or you know, just are very
00:31:58
satisfied with the outcome. There were no celebrations this time. We locked up a very, very evil man.
00:32:05
But there was no cause for celebration, because the families of those two little girls
00:32:09
were still waiting for their day in court, still waiting for justice. NARRATOR: The guilty verdict to reaffirm the community's
00:32:16
belief that Bishop was behind the 1986 murders of Nicola and Karen. GRAHAM BARTLETT: Even though Bishop had been convicted
00:32:25
of a very similar offense against a very similar girl in very similar circumstances, nothing
00:32:31
would have allowed the police to recharge Bishop with those earlier murders, and put him before the court.
00:32:38
The law simply didn't allow it. So we were stuck. We knew that Bishop had killed Nicola and Karen,
00:32:46
everybody knew that within the police, the families knew that. Nothing we could do about it.
00:32:53
NARRATOR: By 2004, 38-year-old Russell Bishop had been in prison for 14 years. The convicted pedophile was due to be released at any moment.
00:33:04
Detective Jeff Riley had been recruited in the same year that Bishop was sent to prison, but he was still aware
00:33:11
of the miscarriage of justice surrounding the Babes in the Wood murders. JEFF RILEY: Well I joined the police in 1990,
00:33:22
and so of course, that was only a few years after he'd been acquitted at trial. And I was aware of the investigation,
00:33:28
and I was aware it had a massive impact clearly on the families, a massive impact on the community
00:33:32
at Moulsecoomb. And I think it always hung as a bit of a dark cloud over Brighton and over Sussex Police,
00:33:38
because you never want to see the murder of two little girls with the guy not brought to justice.
00:33:44
NARRATOR: But all that was about to change. JEFF RILEY: The big change came in 2003, when the Criminal
00:33:50
Justice Act was brought in. It was actually became law in 2005. And that was a real milestone in the UK justice system,
00:33:58
because it meant that someone who was found not guilty, i.e acquitted at trial, could now potentially
00:34:05
be taken back to trial and be retried for the original offense. NARRATOR: The new legislation that
00:34:10
remove the so-called Double Jeopardy law, meant Bishop could be retried for the murders
00:34:15
of Nicola and Karen. But only if there was some new evidence against him. GRAHAM BARTLETT: When we talk about new evidence,
00:34:21
we weren't talking about evidence that had been sat there and the police haven't bothered to look at,
00:34:26
or the prosecution had decided not to use at court. It had to be new evidence, and it had to be compelling.
00:34:34
NARRATOR: Gathering the new evidence would take years. But fortunately, as Bishop was still
00:34:39
considered a danger to young girls, his parole was continually denied. By 2013, Jeff and his team believe
00:34:49
they had made a breakthrough. Although DNA testing wasn't readily available to detectives in 1986, forensic science had
00:34:57
come on in leaps and bounds. And the blue Pinto sweatshirt once again became pivotal in the case.
00:35:04
JEFF RILEY: Normally they would always test around the neck. They would test under the armpits.
00:35:09
But they took the view that actually it had like a double cuff on the sweatshirt.
00:35:12
So if we unpick the cuff and pull it apart, we may find some evidence of the wearer within that cuff.
00:35:17
And that's exactly what they did. And that's exactly what they found. They actually recovered a full DNA profile from Russell Bishop
00:35:25
from within that cuffed area. That had been there since he'd wore the jumper in 1986.
00:35:31
NARRATOR: Back in 1986, the sweatshirt had merely been regarded as lost property.
00:35:36
And had been handled so many times, contamination of the evidence couldn't be ruled out in a court of law.
00:35:43
Incredibly, it was back to square one for Jeff. JEFF RILEY: Well that was a massive blow
00:35:49
for the investigation. We'd been running two years. I'd been discussing with the family,
00:35:53
we built their hopes up. We'd invested a lot of money, from Sussex Police's point of view.
00:35:57
We'd invested a lot of time. But of course, the impact on the family could have been significant.
00:36:03
But the scientists were quite upbeat and they said, look, we've got lots of other options to test evidence.
00:36:08
So just because we've lost this DNA in the cuff, which was our original bet, doesn't mean to say
00:36:13
there's not other avenues. NARRATOR: Some evidence from the original investigation
00:36:18
was still securely sealed away. Forensic samples taken from the bodies of Nicola and Karen
00:36:24
using an adhesive tape. GRAHAM BARTLETT: They decided that they would go back to these tapings.
00:36:29
The tapings that had been taken back in the 80s by the scientist who was looking for fibers, hair,
00:36:34
foliage, those sorts of things. Because these tapings were sealed parcels in time, really.
00:36:41
They were time capsules, of evidence. There was no break in seals. So they examined the tapings.
00:36:48
And this was a Eureka moment, because within those tapings, was Bishop's DNA. NARRATOR: Modern science had proved what detectives
00:36:56
back in 1986 couldn't. The new DNA evidence firmly placed Russell Bishop at the scene of the crime, and proved
00:37:05
he had been in physical contact with the two nine-year-old girls. It also meant without a doubt, Bishop had been wearing the now
00:37:14
infamous Pinto sweatshirt. JEFF RILEY: So even though we'd lost the cuff, we had DNA on the sweatshirt, we had DNA from our victim,
00:37:22
and we had all the other evidence that stood the test of time. GRAHAM BARTLETT: Bishop's assertion--
00:37:27
and it was probably his only consistent assertion, other than the fact that he hadn't killed the girls--
00:37:31
was that he knew nothing about that sweatshirt, and it wasn't his. Yet here it was sprinkled in his DNA.
00:37:45
NARRATOR: Based on this new evidence, investigators knew that the Court of Appeal
00:37:50
would agree to a retrial. The only thing left to do was break the news to Russell Bishop.
00:37:56
JEFF RILEY: He was a Category A prisoner, because of his security risk. So we had to take him to a Category
00:38:02
A holding police station. And that's the first thing he would have known about our investigation, was when
00:38:07
he drove into the rear yard of Durham Central Police Station. And he just kept saying, I want to go back to prison,
00:38:15
this has been dealt with, this is gone away. I think he was hoping it had gone away.
00:38:18
And I think he'd convinced himself it had. But of course, he hadn't thought about Double Jeopardy,
00:38:23
he hadn't thought about the Criminal Justice Act. And he hadn't thought about the fact
00:38:26
that we'd never forgotten about this case. And there he was in custody, being arrested again for the murders of Karen and Nicola.
00:38:33
It was a massive moment for us. NARRATOR: The retrial began at the Old Bailey in October 2018.
00:38:45
Further evidence was presented against Bishop, including explicit letters he'd written to a 13-year-old girl
00:38:52
from his prison cell, while on remand for the original trial in 1987. He started shouting that it wasn't right that he
00:39:00
was questioned in this way. He appealed to his counsel. He appealed to the judge.
00:39:05
The judge very quickly told him that these questions were appropriate, and if at any stage,
00:39:08
they weren't, he would step in, but he didn't need to. As this went on and went forward,
00:39:13
Bishop became more and more angry. He then asked for a break. He then left the witness box.
00:39:19
He then refused to return. And the following day, refused to return to trial. So actually, he never came back to court
00:39:26
after his initial evidence. I think he realized at that moment, that he'd blown it.
00:39:33
Because the jurors could see for themselves exactly what he was capable of. NARRATOR: After just three hours of deliberations,
00:39:42
on the 10th of December 2018, the jury had reached a decision. When they filed back into the court,
00:39:51
the families were all there, that barristers were all there, the police officers were there.
00:39:56
Everyone was in court, apart from Bishop. JEFF RILEY: The family was sitting just behind me.
00:40:01
The courtroom was packed. But the atmosphere was electric. I mean, absolutely electric.
00:40:06
The jury came back in. You all look at the jury, trying to get an indication of what you think.
00:40:11
We've all done it over the years. But we just couldn't tell. GRAHAM BARTLETT: The foreman stood up.
00:40:15
The clerk asked whether they had made a decision on which they were all agreed. The foreman confirmed they had.
00:40:22
And then, when asked whether or not they found Bishop guilty or not guilty of murdering Nicola,
00:40:29
he replied guilty. And when asked whether they'd found the defendant guilty or not guilty of murdering Karen,
00:40:36
he replied guilty. JEFF RILEY: The feeling in the court was just astounding. I looked at the family, and just the look on their face,
00:40:44
and they let out a gasp. And I think there was a gasp that just went around the court.
00:40:48
GRAHAM BARTLETT: It was a huge moment for the whole city, for the police, for the retired officers,
00:40:54
that this was a cloud that had now lifted from the city. NARRATOR: Unlike his acquittal exactly 31 years earlier
00:41:06
to the day, Russell Bishop would not be celebrating in the pub. The following day, the 52-year-old
00:41:13
refused to appear in front of the judge to hear his fate. GRAHAM BARTLETT: He sentenced Bishop with a withering attack
00:41:20
to two life sentences and a minimum term of 36 years. Bishop will be, at the very least, 88,
00:41:28
when he is eligible for parole. I would be astonished if that man ever walked the streets again.
00:41:35
Detectives don't like to get too emotional with these things, but this was just such
00:41:39
a massive moment for the team. And I remember sitting next to one of my guys, and I was just shaking hands, and just looking at the family,
00:41:47
and smiling at Barrie, and Michelle, and Susan. And just thinking, I'm so pleased for you.
00:41:52
I'm so pleased that finally you've got justice for your daughters. It was an amazing moment.
00:41:58
One that I've never had before, and I don't think we'll ever have it again. NARRATOR: A weight had been lifted
00:42:04
from Moulsecoomb and the city of Brighton as a whole. DR. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I think the feeling in the community,
00:42:11
amongst the family, and the officers involved, was that they had finally achieved
00:42:15
justice for Karen and Nicola. But I don't think it was very much a celebratory moment,
00:42:21
it was more the closing of a chapter. Because Karen and Nicola would now be women with years of life behind them and in front of them.
00:42:29
And this is something that Bishop has denied to them. So I think there is a sense of justice here,
00:42:37
but we'll never be able to get back what he's taken away. NARRATOR: For 32 years, Bishop thought he'd got away
00:42:46
with murder, but justice eventually caught up with the callous killer. Russell Bishop is an evil pedophile psychopath.
00:42:56
His crimes speak for themselves. The way he conducts himself, the way he's conducted himself throughout, just underline the evil
00:43:05
that that man is. I used to say that there were people that did evil things, but very few evil people.
00:43:12
Well, Bishop is one of those evil people. NARRATOR: Bishop was a pedophile who couldn't resist his selfish and impure instincts.
00:43:23
He squeezed the life from two innocent young girls, and it was only his own ineptitude
00:43:28
that saved the life of a third. Justice was 32 years in the making. But the scars he's left on the community he ripped apart,
00:43:37
will take even longer to heal, making Russell Bishop one of the world's most evil killers.
00:43:44
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